A/N: Hi everyone, I've got a new short story done, and by short I mean it's around five chapters. I wanted to make it longer but I couldn't find anyway that I really liked in order to make it one of my larger stories. Anyway I kind of like that it wasn't too long. Now this being said none of the chapters are terribly long either with the exception being the last chapter. Now I won't be posting the next chapter until next weekend since I'm due to have house guests this weekend and unless they leave sooner than I think I'm not going to have time for editing. Hopefully you enjoy this as it's an AU twist on Twilight Princess, which if you've read my profile you know that's one of my favorite games.

Speaking of my profile I want to encourage everyone to go at least check out the bottom of it and vote in the poll there. I'm working on expanding my one-shot called 'The Offer' and since it's up I thought it would be a good way to get reader input. The bottom of my page contains more information on this, plus I'm hoping to change out the poll this weekend so cast your vote now as I only have three votes on it at the moment.

Lastly I want to thank anyone who reads this and I hope you'll let me know your thoughts on it; be they good, bad, or somewhere in-between. As you might suspect I don't own Legend of Zelda or it's characters, I just write stories about it.

Later

A Prisoner of our Beliefs

Torches burned in the dark night as the small procession made its way out of the forest. The dark shadows of the night barely seemed to quell away from the torches' light yet their bearers marched on, an obvious sense of pride emanating off of the four people. They walked in a careful formation so as to not drop their burden, for carried between them hanging from sturdy wooden poles was a cage.

Within the thick metal bars of the cage was a large black and silver wolf. The beast was so large that it barely had room to stand or turnabout and was instead forced to lie down inside its prison glaring with intelligent, hard; blue eyes at its captors. As they marched along the path the forest began to thin until they came to a clearing with only a large tree situated within the confines of the high dirt walls. As they continued to move forward more light was shone upon the group from torches placed in the ground around a small village.

Several joyous cries could be heard at the sight of the bearers entering the village with the cage born between them heading for a slightly raised platform in the middle of the village. For a moment it appeared that they would set the cage down on the platform but instead they set it down near it, removing the poles they had used to carry it as they did so. Now that they were standing next to it more details could be seen about the platform they had set the cage near.

Sturdy thick wooden beams sat tall on either side with another situated atop the beams and what appeared to be eyehole pins pounded into the wood with rope passing through the eyelets. Though the shadows were deep one could almost see a similar set up near the base of the beams with more ropes coiled there. The one thing that could clearly be made out even in the dim torch light was the blood stains on the platform. No amount of rain or scrubbing could ever remove the deep brow stain on the stone, nor could it erase the implications of what was meant to happen here.

"Rusl, Ashie, Jaggle; Fado I'm glad to see you've returned whole to us. Tell me what do you have there?"

"Mayor Bo," greeted the middle aged ash blonde man. Wiping his brow, despite the band there, the man called Rusl smiled tiredly as he looked at the larger man who limped towards them using a stout polished cane.

"Bo, I think we're in luck. For the first time in years the village can sleep in peace. We're almost positive this is the last of them."

The large bullish man gasped turning to stare at the cage, however, now instead of a wolf confined within its bars there sat a young man. The apparent teen seemed to completely contradict the wolf that had been there only moments before. Where the wolf had been dark in coloring the youth's hair was dark blonde and his skin pale. The wolf had been enormous for its kind yet the boy within the bars was short and lithe. The only resemblance to the animal that had been there before were his eyes. They were just as blue and hard as the wolf's had been and like the wolf he continually glared at his captors.

This sudden change didn't seem to perturb the two men as they looked at the boy returning his hard look. Before any more could be said a dark haired woman came up to the pair speaking excitedly. "Ya shoulda seen it Mayor Bo. The way Rusl trapped that beast was genius, yeah."

The two other men who had been with the party cheered in agreement, yet even with that a clear snort was heard from the direction of the boy. "Quiet you," snarled the woman, "no one wants to hear from a beast."

"Now Ashie, perhaps we should hear him out; after all he must have taken this form because he wanted to speak to us."

"Hmph," snorted the boy again, "not really I just wanted to be sure to look that coward in the eyes when he murders me." The young trapped boy indicated Rusl as he said this giving the man a glare that could have been shooting daggers.

"You take that back," roared the young man who had also returned with the group. He was perhaps only a few years older that the wolf boy but he was enormous with thick arms and shoulders; if they stood side by side he would likely stand at least a head taller than the blond boy.

"Calm yourself Fado," said Mayor Bo eyeing the larger boy. "He is just trying to goad you into doing something reckless so he might escape. His kind are the foulest of tricksters as we all know."

The imprisoned youth snarled at Bo's words baring his teeth slightly allowing the torch light to glint off them. "We have no need of tricks or conniving plots like you or your supposed 'genius' here," he said indicating Rusl. "Yes, it takes an extreme amount of intelligence to drive someone into a cage by having arrows shot at them from every other direction but the one you want them to run in. I only wish your archers had had better aim and managed to actually kill me instead of forcing me to be captured and allowing you to gloat before you finish me."

"Yeah well if you wanted to die you could've just stood still, yeah. That's your own fault foul beast," said Ashei stepping towards the cage fists clenched.

The youth glared at her again speaking in a scathing voice, "If I could have I gladly would have wench, but the curse I'm bound by won't let me kill myself. I am always forced to keep going until I can go no further. If you want to know more about it you can ask that cowardly bastard you called a genius."

Anger emanated off of the young man the more he spoke his body quivering at the suppressed emotion. At his accusation of calling the man, Rusl, a coward; a slim kind faced woman stepped forward. She rested one hand around the small of Rusl's back and the other on her large belly showing she was close to giving birth. "My husband is no coward. He is a brave man who has protected this village with his life."

The blonde boy looked at the pregnant woman eyes lingering on her shoulders gaze hardening as he did so. "If you consider his acts a form of bravery then you must have no notion of cowardliness. For he is the one that shot my father in the back even when my father was trying to make peace between our people and was in no way threatening your husband. He is also the one who killed my youngest brother who's fur you wear around your shoulders. Did you know that was his first hunt out of the village? He was only ten and terrified to leave our home for we all knew of the dangers, but he went with my mother and sister tracking a herd of deer to bring food back to the village. They should have been safe; should have come home. Instead I lost both of my siblings and my mother that day."

The boy's eyes roved around the crowd now standing around the square listening to the conversation with the 'feral beast'. "In fact it seems to be quite the morbid tradition amongst your people to wear the skins of my dead comrades. I can see my mother's coat on that young girl standing next your mayor, one of my best friends that I grew up with, around the girth of that trembling man, and that red-head is wearing the fur of one our strongest fighters who only died because his leg was broken."

Several gasps and murmurs flew amongst the villagers at the end of the boy's words. Rusl moved forward slightly pulling out of his wife's embrace, ready to confront the boy's accusation. "If you are talking about that deranged one of your kind that tried to make me believe your kind weren't the vicious murdering beasts we all know you to be, then you are quite mistaken. I was protecting my life and the lives of everyone in this village…"

"From what," cut in the boy sharply his azure eyes seeming to glow in the torch light. "I was there that day when he spoke to you and I saw everything. I watched as he stood and faced you man to man and explained the truth of our pack to you. I saw how you belittled him instead of listening and then the moment he turned away because he heard a noise that you could not, you put an arrow through his chest. He tried to make peace tried to save both our families, but you were such a self-righteous ignorant bastard you couldn't even consider the possibility that there was some truth to his words. I then watched as you dragged off his body like the barbarians you are. Now it's likely you have his pelt somewhere in your home to remind you of your great victory over a man who wasn't showing you any aggression let alone attacking you. Being the coward you are you didn't even have the courage to look him in the face when you struck him down."

Rusl's face flushed red at the boy's words but before he could say anything Mayor Bo spoke up in his defense. "Rusl was right to take any opportunity presented to him. If he hadn't he would have been dead or at the very least maimed like I was by one of you foul beasts; in fact the one you said was your mother did this to me." As he spoke Bo indicated his leg with the thick wooden cane he used.

However, his statement did not seem to curb the boy's anger in the slightest as he again offered another rebuttal for their statements. "Your leg would have been fine had you not been so stupid. My mother was trying to keep you away from an encampment of demons. A few of our pack had been posted around the area until we could assemble enough of our warriors to take them out. You were the one who insisted on trying to go into that section of the forest despite the fact she gave you obvious warnings to turn around. She attempted to pull you back and was trying to be gentle so as to not hurt you, but you struggled and hit her so much she had to bite down harder. Thanks to your blows you took out one of her eyes and later killed her as repayment for saving your ungrateful life. She even felt bad that she had hurt you and said the loss of her eye was fair penance for what happened."

The young woman who had stood next to Rusl came forward speaking in a quiet voice that still held all her anger and hatred for the youth. "If she was trying to save Bo why not just take a human form and explain that to him. And why would she wish to save his life in the first place, you and your people are nothing but a bunch of mindless blood thirsty beasts?"

The boy scowled deeply at the woman again his eyes were drawn to the fur wrapped around her shoulders keeping out the chill of the night. "With the demons about there was too much danger and she had to be ready to fight them; not to mention she would have been weaker and her senses dulled in that form. If the demons didn't try to kill her that brute would have so she did what she thought was best."

The boy paused for a moment but before any more could be said he posed a question of his own. "Why all the pretenses and talking. Why haven't you killed me already then readied my corpse for skinning? You might as well get it over with because once I'm dead your own deaths will soon follow."

The large young man, Fado, snorted at this, "Yeah right, for the first time in years we'll be able to sleep in peace knowing no mangy half wolf is going to slaughter us in our beds."

The boy in the cage only glared at him then turned away from the crowd staring out into the dark night apparently done talking with the villagers. Fado seemed to take this as an admission of defeat and was ready to continue on when Bo interrupted him.

"Well folks I'd say that's enough for the night we'll deal with this," he waved his hand towards the wolf boy, "in the morning. For now get some sleep. After tomorrow we can celebrate as we'll no longer have to worry about being hunted down."

These were met with a cheer from the small crowd of villagers as they began to disperse some throwing backwards looks and a few curses at the trapped boy. If the boy heard them he gave no indication continuing to stare out at the darkness of the night.